


Disentangled

by celebros



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Canon-Typical Cinnamon Rolls Too Good for This World, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Hair Brushing, Maz - Freeform, Teasing, The Emperor's Dav
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29635176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celebros/pseuds/celebros
Summary: Setheris had told Maia that he had no more gift for maz than for anything else.... And we're taking Setheris at his word... why, exactly?
Relationships: Cala Athmaza & Maia Drazhar, Csethiro Ceredin/Maia Drazhar
Comments: 21
Kudos: 45





	Disentangled

From behind the frosted glass, Csethiro gives a small, discontented yelp, and before he’s aware of having done so, Maia has crossed to her side. Her newest handmaiden, who cannot be older than sixteen, cowers back and begins to prostrate herself, but Csethiro touches the girl’s wrist and shakes her head slightly, and in the end she stands back, hair-brush held tight in both hands, head bowed, making herself as small as she might.

“It’s nothing, my love,” the Empress says gently. “Our time today in the paddock has given poor Ciaran quite an impossible task, to untangle us. We should have more composure, but we have not yet become quite accustomed to having our hair brushed by another’s hand.”

“We do not mean to demean her skills,” Maia says, fumbling and giving little Ciaran a small bow that naturally terrifies her more than a raised fist, “but -- we -- when we were small, we were -- quite fond of brushing our mother’s hair. Thine is finer, of course, so perhaps we will have no gift for it, but -- an it not offend thee, or thy handmaid, it would please us if thou would’st allow us to make an attempt.”

Csethiro’s responding smile is both fond and, layered beneath that fondness, faintly irritated. “Of course, Husband,” she says, and reaches to take the brush from Ciaran, who squeaks and retreats to the anteroom. A moment later, Maia hears Cala’s gentle voice, and Csethiro softens. “I would entreat thee not to frighten this one off on her first night,” the Empress teases, “but thou’rt so earnest in thy impropriety. It’s dreadfully attractive on thee.”

Maia blushes, and she hands him the brush, which he turns over in his hands. It’s smaller than those he’s used to, and has a faintly engraved mother-of-pearl backing and a fierce clutch of soft-headed pins. The handle is ivory, unforgiving.

“Where prefer’st I start?” he asks, and Csethiro snorts -- a sound Maia is accustomed to hearing a dozen times a day from Deret, but still finds endlessly endearing to hear from his Zhasan.

“Ciaran had just begun on my left,” she says, “but honestly, she hadn’t gotten far enough for it to matter.”

Maia turns her chin slightly, thrumming at the feeling of her head tilting into his fingers, and feels his way along her crown, confirming what she’s said. Her braids, the first of which have been delicately undone, had been hiding a veritable birds-nest, and there’s no distinguishable progress in taming it. It’s also very different from his own hair, or his mother’s, and much more similar in appearance to his half-sister Vedero’s -- smooth, lovely silk, thin and fine and delicate. Much at odds with the rest of her.

Maia weaves a few strands between his fingers, pulling a section away from the rest, and sets one hand close to her scalp, then pulls the brush against the first of the snarls, bracing himself for another yelp. It doesn’t come. The pins catch, but he licks his lips and twists the fingers near to her scalp to alleviate the directness of the pressure, and then the brush pulls through the rest without trouble.

Csethiro goes very still.

“I’m sorry,” he says into a daunting silence. “Did I --?”

“No,” she says, but her voice seems to be tremorous. “That was -- do that again.”

He brushes his way through the same lock, slow and deliberate. Csethiro makes another indistinct sound, and he almost stops, but she lifts her hand to his own and moves him on to the next section of unbraided hair. “Again,” she instructs, very quiet, and he pulls the segment away from the rest, winds one hand at the top, and presses his way through the second snarl.

Csethiro lets out a short, harsh breath, like a laugh. “Osreian’s tits, Maia,” she says, “that’s a hell of a way to tell me --”

Cala skids into the room, Deret clattering on his heels. “Serenity,” he gasps, face as pink as if he’s run a league rather than a few short meters, “what --”

“What?” Maia echoes, bewildered. “Cala, w-what’s toward?”

“Maz,” Cala breathes, “didst not --? It was right here, an unfamiliar maz, we thought it our imagination almost but --”

“ _What?!_ ” Csethiro nearly shrieks, spinning in her chair to look at him. Maia reels back, and it takes him a moment to recognize her expression as one of _delight_. “Thou scoundrel!” she chides, rising from her chair and embracing him; Maia has to move the hand with the brush aside to avoid planting it in her face.

“Csethiro,” he says weakly, “I don’t --”

She pulls back, laughing, and then her face changes suddenly, her rapture turning to astonishment. “You don’t mean --” she begins, looking back and forth between Maia and Cala. “Wait, wait thou --”

“Zhasan, we beg you, if you have knowledge of this --”

Csethiro sinks back into her chair, gaping at them, and then bites her lip. “Our apologies, Cala Athmaza,” she says properly. “We assumed that it was only _we_ who were unaware of our husband’s mazeise talents.”

Maia drops the brush. The mother-of-pearl shatters on the tile, and he jumps, winces. The others are looking at him as if he’s a spectre, and he feels quite light-headed. If this is a joke, it’s a cruel one. He’d told Csethiro, on one of their first nights together, of his childhood ambition to be maza-nohecharis. Perhaps, he thinks faintly, he had neglected to tell her how much he’d cried when Setheris had crowed about his failure to manifest any talents. “Hast not a mazeise bone in thy ugly, unnatural body,” his cousin had nearly choked with laughter.

“Wife,” he says stiffly, “thou’rt mistaken.”

Cala stares at him a moment more, then turns to Csethiro and sinks to his knees at her side. “Zhasan, we cannot risk assumptions. What didst thou sense?”

“He --” Csethiro’s hand flaps at Maia, mouth working, “he -- he made it not hurt. When he brushed through my hair.” She draws in a breath. “I thought it a fancy of imagination too, so I had him do it again. It felt -- warm. Smooth. Like -- like melted candle wax.”

“No, _no_ ,” Maia chokes, “I’m not --” and he almost falls to his knees; Deret catches him and drags him away from the sharp little shards from the shattered brush-plate before letting him collapse. The soldier’s broad hand spans his shoulderblades, and Maia sits sprawled on the cold tiles, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Then Cala is sitting before him, knee to knee, his long, thin fingers cupping Maia’s cheeks gently. “Breathe,” he is saying, “Maia, _breathe_ ,” and Maia meets his gaze and shakes his head.

“You would have known,” he says weakly. “You -- you would have seen, Cala, it must not be true, or you --”

Cala lets out a little laugh, half-hysterical himself. “One would think,” he says. “Let us not leap to conclusions, Serenity. Let us breathe deeply, and see this matter with clear eyes, yes?” He is taking deliberate, long breaths, his oft-hazy eyes sharp on Maia’s, wordlessly instructing him to follow suit. He manages it, finally, and Deret behind him lets out a gusty sigh of relief.

Maia closes his eyes and swallows. “I am sorry,” he says quietly. “Csethiro, I -- it must have been thy brush. And I, I’ve broken it, I didn’t --”

Csethiro laughs. “No, Maia,” she says wryly. “Believe me. One hundred thousand times that brush has met my tangles, and never has it shown any sign of mazeise mercy.” She is biting back a smile. “But why are we surprised? Everything about thee is a miracle, after all. Why should this be any different?”

“Serenity,” Cala says, and when he flinches, “Maia. I know thou’rt shaken, but -- could’st try again?”

Maia shakes his head, immediate and fierce. “An it were true, we couldn’t dare,” he breathes. “Even an we could believe it, it would mean that we, untrained and unpracticed, would be casting maz on our _wife_.”

“Yes, a terribly fierce and dangerous maz, to make our hair not hurt,” Csethiro says drily. “Truly, Maia, if thou refusest, thou’rt condemning me to --”

“We apologize, Zhasan, but his point is not ill-founded,” Cala interrupts, and slowly flushes, from his neck up to the tips of his ears. “Perhaps,” he says, his head lowered, “a-an Your Serenity does not find it too… intimate. Or demeaning. We could. That is to say. Thou could’st attempt… on us?”

Csethiro snorts again, and the room starts in reaction. “Maza,” she says, throaty and arid, “thou speak’st as though thou’rt afraid it was some sort of sex play.”

Maia would not have thought Cala could redden further. “Zhasan!” Deret splutters in indignation. “Our partner would never --!”

Csethiro nearly bowls over her own chair with laughter, and after a moment, Maia finds himself giggling as well, breathy and embarrassed. “Thou’rt a menace,” he tells her. “Our apologies, Cala.”

“Oh, well,” Csethiro harrumphs, “an it _were_ sex play, it’s not as if we could keep it from thee. Our husband and ourself have no need for shame before thee.”

“Be that,” Deret breathes, “as it may.”

“Stop, thou’lt break him,” Maia whispers, and turns back to Cala. “Yes, of course. We -- um -- if I did aught -- _wrong_ , I’d not hurt thee, would I?”

“No, Serenity,” Cala says kindly. “The worst couldst do to me is pull my hair, I promise thee.”

“Here,” Csethiro says, “have my chair,” and Cala does, and they all gather around him for a moment before Maia realizes they’ll need another brush.

“Where does Esha keep mine?” he asks, and Deret opens the cupboard where the bathing oils are kept and pulls his brush from a hook on the inside of the door, proffering it wordlessly.

Maia almost drops this one, too, although it would bear the treatment -- its handle is a dark, sturdy wood, with pin-heads on one side and bristles on the other. Cala pulls off his spectacles, tucking one earpiece into the neck of his robe, and slips the band that holds his queue from his hair to his wrist.

Although it’s far from the texture of Maia’s, Cala’s hair is coarser than Csethiro’s, the strands less delicate, although the same pale color that seems almost translucent up close. “One moment,” Cala says, and ruffles his fingers through his hair mercilessly. When he’s done, his hair a corona of chaos floating about him, he looks at Maia pleasantly and nods.

 _Nothing will happen,_ Maia tells himself, steeling his gut against what seems an inevitable disappointment. _They’ll have thee try a few times, to be sure, but -- nothing can happen. Nothing can happen, hobgoblin, thou_ know’st _this, calm thy unruly imagination._

He breathes deeply and pushes Csethiro and Beshelar from his awareness. The brush seems heavy in his hand. He lifts his right to Cala’s skull, traces the line of his part and winds his fingers into a section of flyaway hair. He forces himself to raise the brush, and holds his breath, and --

 _Come to thy mama, my little heart,_ Chenelo Drazharan calls. _Come lie down with me and tame my mane. Thy fingers are like no one else’s. Whose child art thou?_

 _The star’s child,_ Maia tells her. _And thine._ And he exhales, tugging the roots upwards and the pins down.

For a moment, the silence reigns again, and then Cala does as Csethiro had, spinning to embrace him in gawky limbs, nearly braining himself on the brush in the process.

Maia is numb, waiting, uncertain. And then Cala’s lips move against his ear, “Yes, Serenity. That was maz,” and Csethiro is shrieking again, like a child in her excitement, and Deret is staring poleaxed.

Maia loses his feet again, and Cala falls with him, laughing. “We are such a fool,” he says. “Wait ‘til we tell Kiru, not a soul in the Athmaz’are will ever let us hear the end of this --”

“Ah,” Deret says, “perhaps we should not get carried away, maza.”

“Oh,” Cala says, calming, “oh, quite right. Hm.” And he unwinds his arm from around Maia and scoots backwards as if to take in the whole sight of him. Csethiro crowds into his place, wrapping her arm around Maia’s middle and pressing her nose against his cheek, but Maia is ready for the other boot, and watches consternation cross his maza’s face.

“What is it?” he asks, and Cala tilts his head from side to side as if deciding something.

“There _is_ precedent,” he says, “but…”

“It could be most advantageous for your Serenity to keep this secret,” Deret blurts. Cala tuts at him.

“Lieutenant, it behooves us to consider this at more length before providing advisory,” he says.

“I,” Maia begins hesitantly, and stops when their eyes all swivel to him. “I think… I might rather like… to have something like this. For myself.”

“Oh!” Cala says. “In that case, we see no reason why anyone else must know. Outside the Second Nohecharei, naturally. And… the Adremaza, of course. And thy chaplain, when he arrives? Hm.”

“I wouldn’t mind if Csevet knew,” Maia adds.

“The dav,” Csethiro says stoutly, and Maia grins at her, feeling childish with joy again. Cala comes forward again, and sets a hand against Maia’s shoulder as if bracing him.

“We must be sure you understand, Serenity,” he says gently, “it is almost certain thy gifts are quite modest. If they have been so subtle that even thou didst not realize… and their manifestation so rare that neither Kiru nor myself ever sensed them…”

“Of course,” Maia says. “We are quite prepared that this may be the only talent we possess.”

“But it is a promising one,” Cala says, earnest and relieved. “To dull pain -- if thou canst do so in this small fashion, with some training perhaps thou could’st carry this talent to other applications. And… if thou’rt amenable to try, knowing it may end in disappointment, I would be very pleased to try to teach thee some small maz of protection. Not that I expect would’st _ever_ need use it,” he adds strongly, warding off an imminent eruption from Beshelar, “but it is no harm for thee to know some small tricks.”

“Well,” Csethiro says, “the experiment being completed, and thy results duplicated… wilt finish what thou hast started, Husband? Or shall I call back my handmaiden, if she’s not fled the court by now?”

“Cala?” Maia asks. “Is’t safe?”

“Perhaps,” Cala says, blushing again, “thou could’st finish mine, to be certain?”

Csethiro swats his arm. “Thou fearsome tease, Cala Athmaza,” she says, and ushers him back to her seat.

**Author's Note:**

> crack ending:
> 
> Cala presses a flask of tea into Kiru’s hands. “Sit thou,” he says. “We have news for thee.”
> 
> Kiru sits, one brow raised. “If thou believest the Empress to be carrying, we should tell you as a cleric it’s too soon for certainty,” she says.
> 
> “Hm, no,” Cala says. She takes a deep draught, and raises her other brow, too, but Cala shakes his head and waits for her to swallow before blurting, “Serenity performed an anodynic maz last night.”
> 
> “Ah, excellent,” Kiru says. “I’d wondered when you’d notice. Anodynic, you say? That’s exciting; I’d only sensed focal, to date. Opening his book always to the right page, and such. At the rate thou wert going, I was beginning to think _Csevet_ was going to notice before thee.”


End file.
